Tournament results let me as a coach know how each player is doing.  It also gives me a better understanding of whether or not what I am teaching them is relevant.  Training juniors to compete against a variety of play styles, conditions and situations is extremely complicated and demanding.  Getting direct feedback from our juniors based on how they played the previous weekend is extremely important to our clinics and helps me to improve them. 

Getting juniors involved into playing USTA tournaments is in my opinion the most important step in their development.  For the juniors in Gripspin Tennis Academy, it is a requirement in order to be involved and here is why.

The summer is now here!

For most kids, summer is a time to take a nice long break from school books and school deadlines.  Not having to worry about homework and extra credit grades and make up work makes any grade school kid happy to see the month of June.

For those kids looking to improve their tennis game however, summer is a time  to increase their training regimen and gain some ranking points though weekly tournament play.  Since most of the school year, kids normally have to sacrifice an important upcoming tournament or training session for a school event, summer is the perfect time to try and catch up.

Of course summer is supposed to be vacation time as well, so finding the time to get in that extra training time or etching in a tournament or two a week can be tough at times.